Newly elected Will County officials sworn into office

Will County Board members seated, new members elected to leadership

Newly elected and re-elected Will County officers were sworn into their positions on Monday at the Will County Office Building in Joliet.

Newly elected and re-elected officials in Will County government were sworn in on Monday morning to begin their terms.

Will County Clerk Lauren Staley-Ferry, Treasurer Tim Brophy and members of the Will County Board were sworn in at a ceremony at the Will County Office Building. The Will County Board then convened a “reorganizational meeting” to adopt board rules and elect members to leadership positions.

Will County Sheriff Mike Kelley and newly elected Circuit Court Judges Vincent Cornelius and David Garcia were sworn in later Monday morning.

Once the board members were seated, the first order of business members had to attend to was adopting its rules and procedures. There weren’t any changes from the previous term, but there was discussion about the vote needed to adopt the rules.

The board only needed a simple majority to pass the rules on Monday but would need a three-fifths majority to approve the rules again in January. Member Denise Winfrey explained that would give each member some time to review the rules. Ventura made a motion to make the approval temporary, but it failed. The rules passed with only Ventura voting “no.”

The members then nominated and approved Winfrey as the new speaker. Only two members of the full board voted against her.

Mark Ferry was also elected as the new Democratic majority leader and Mike Fricilone was elected the new Republican minority leader.

The speaker “shall be the chief administrative official of the Will County Board,” according to the board rules. The majority and minority leaders “shall provide floor leadership for all Republican and Democratic party members with respect to all legislative matters pending before the board.”

The current makeup of the Will County Board is for fiscal 2019 and 2020. The next election for board members will be in November 2020.